WESTLETON

Westleton Parish Council website
Useful information about Westleton, including forthcoming events, doctor, dentist etc.

Chapel Books
Bob Jackson, who runs the bookshop, has recently splashed out on an impressive new website. For reasons which are not clear to me he hasn't chosen to feature the two splendid photographs of the interior of his shop which appear elsewhere on this site.  But his new website is worth exploring - as, of course, is the shop itself.

The Crown, Westleton
The Crown was made Suffolk County Dining Pub of The Year by The Good Pub Guide 2008.

The White Horse Inn, Westleton
The local village pub, which also serves food (but which is closed on Tuesday lunchtime)

Westleton Common Group website
The garden gate of Middle Cottage leads directly onto Westleton Common. Find out more about the common, its fauna and its flora - and its history - by visiting the Westleton Common website.

St Peter's, Westleton
Click on the link above for the best introduction to the church, which will be found on Simon's Suffolk Churches website. This site is one of the gems of the internet, which should be even better known than it is.  Others evidently share this view.  In 2008 the Sunday Times described Simon Knott's site as 'a comprehensive website, astonishing in its attention to detail . . . Each church (587 to date) has been photographed and summarised, with entries updated. Knott says that this is not a religious website; but it is certainly an act of worship.'

DUNWICH AND MINSMERE

Dunwich Museum
The sea at Dunwich is about three miles from Middle Cottage and no stay there would be complete without some time taken to explore the tiny hamlet which was once a thriving and important sea port. 

Dunwich Museum is, as its website proclaims 'the small museum with a big story'. Since the website, which does give the museum's opening hours, is still under construction as I write (September 2009), the story which it tells must be sought either in the museum itself or in the generally informative article about Dunwich on Wikipedia.

The claim with which the Wikipedia article begins, however, is untrue. As the article itself goes on to make clear, there is no evidence to suggest that Dunwich was ever the capital of East Anglia. That honour belonged for several centuries to nearby Norwich, which vied with Bristol for the position of England's second city right up to the time of the Industrial Revolution.  But Dunwich was one of the most important ports in England for several hundred years. The Domesday Book recorded it as having three churches in 1086 (as compared with Norwich's 25). In the next two centuries it undoubtedly grew in importance until it had eight churches, two hospitals and a population of around 3,000.

Dunwich's dramatic decline began in 1286 when a terrible storm swept much of the town into the sea. Two more fierce storms in 1328 and 1347 destroyed the harbour and a significant part of the town which remained. Over the next two or three hundred years coastal erosion claimed most of the rest. The museum which tells this melancholy story now stands close to the sea, just along from the Ship Inn. A few hundred years ago, however, both these buildings would have been a mile inland.

The Ship Inn, Dunwich
The main bar in the Ship Inn is one of the most atmospheric along the whole stretch of coast between Southwold and Aldeburgh. And they serve excellent fish and chips. There is also a large garden behind the pub.

The National Trust: Dunwich Heath
The area around Middle Cottage is particularly fortunate in the amount of heathland which has been preserved. In addition to Westleton Common, around 214 acres of ancient heather and gorse survive intact in the care of the National Trust at Dunwich Heath. It is an important nature conservation area and home to a number of scarce species such as the nightjar, the Dartford warbler and the ant-lion - a larval fly which digs pits where it lies concealed waiting for juicy ants to prey upon.

There is a shop and information centre, and a splendid observation room with telescopes, inside the old coastguard cottages. You can also have tea and cakes (and more substantial meals), courtesy of Amanda, who used to look after Middle Cottage but is now in charge of catering there. Indeed, though you'd never guess it from the rather dreary Dunwich section of the NT website, hers is a prize-winning tea-room .

RSPB Minsmere
Bird-watchers will need no introduction to this, the RSPB's flagship reserve. Non bird-watchers are also welcome and will be admitted on payment of a fee.  There are two trails, both of which explore 'the Scrape', a man-made lagoon system offering feeding and nesting areas for waders, terns, wildfowl and gulls. Eight hides are provided and each trail takes around two hours to explore. The shingle beach behind the lagoon is used for nesting by terns and ringed plovers, and grazing marshes to the south provide breeding grounds for lapwings, redshanks and snipe in summer. The sand cliff next to the visitor centre is home to 300 pairs of sand martins in summer.

EASTBRIDGE

The Eel's Foot Inn, Eastbridge
Eastbridge is a small village which lies between Westleton and the coast. The Eel's Foot Inn would be worth a visit if only because the two-mile walk to it from Middle Cottage is an extremely pleasant one through a varied landscape to a point which is a good junction for other footpaths.  (Just beyond the pub you can turn left onto the path which leads to the sea at Minsmere sluice, and thence to Dunwich via the National Trust heathland, with its coastguard cottage tea room.) 

But the Eel's Foot is also a friendly pub with a good fire in winter and plenty of room to eat outside in summer. Back in the eighteenth century it was a smugglers' haunt. In the early part of the twentieth century its main claim to fame was that it was one of several pubs strung out along the Suffolk coast which preserved a genuine folk-singing tradition.

On 13 March 1939 A.L  'Bert' Lloyd recorded for the BBC a folk session held at the Eel's Foot Inn which has since become famous. It resulted in a 78 record and a broadcast which went out on 21 July 1939 under the title 'Saturday Night at the Eel's Foot'.  Whether this was a good thing is another matter since, according to one report, 'singing at the Eel's Foot ceased not long afterwards when people came from away, gawped and treated [the local folk singers] as "some sort of freak".'

The tradition did not die out entirely, however, since the BBC returned to record more sessions after the war. Indeed the tradition survives, after a fashion, today.  Thursday night is 'squit night' when local musicians bring an instrument and play - or sing. ('Squit' is the Norfolk and Suffolk dialect word for 'rubbish'). According to the landlord, however, the 'folkies' have recently been complaining that they are not getting enough playing time, so the last Sunday of every month has now been designated a folk night.

The Eastbridge Cycle Hire Company

One of a number of places near the cottage where you can hire bikes. (For the others see entries below for Darsham and Leiston.) Julian and Alex who run the company say that they will actually deliver bikes to the door of the cottage.

Walking from Eastbridge to Dunwich - and back

'The path ran straight as a die from Eastbridge, east through fields of beet and marsh grazing towards the sea. Under the cool hand of the cloud the land seemed to be whispering secretively - silver willow leaves flicking and ruffling together, poplar groves shivering, reeds murmuring into their soft mauve beards along the ditches . . . '  A Daily Telegraph 'walk of the month', as described by Christopher Somerville.

DARSHAM

The Fox Inn, Darsham
A small pub with two drinking areas served by a single bar. Closed Mondays. Folk evenings on Thursday and Saturday.

Byways bicycles
If you want to hire a bicycle locally this family-run business is at Darsham, about two miles from the cottage. The pictures on the website may not have much connection to Suffolk but Byways do usually have plenty of bikes. Take note though that they close on Tuesdays. Take note also that if you really want to take things easy you can hire an electric bike from Leiston. See below under Leiston.  See also the entry for Eastbridge above.

LEISTON

 LEV - electricbikehire.co.uk
Unusually for this part of the Suffolk Coast, Leiston has a long and honourable tradition of being home to the manufacturing industry, and light engineering in particular. The latest addition to the Leiston legacy is LEV, short for Light Electric Vehicles. They don't actually make electric vehicles from scratch but they do have an engineering workshop where they modify them to meet the needs of their customers. They have also set up a wonderfully imaginative enterprise which allows you to cycle from Suffolk hostelry to Suffolk hostelry without a bead of perspiration to show for your efforts. The idea is that you then have your bike recharged at the next pub while you quietly sup a pint of Adnams. Or, since it takes a couple of hours for a full recharge, you'd better make that two pints. Click on the link above for more details. Or click here for a blog review.